2/22/16

The RETURN of Solarman!!!

Stan Lee likes to say Doctor Doom is 'not really a villain; because it's not illegal to want to take over The World...... If he walked up to a Police Officer and said that he wanted to rule The World- he couldn't be arrested for it.' (I'm paraphrasing, here...)

-Where that falls apart, though, is while the desire may not be a crime; most of the things you'd need to do in order to take over The World would be... so... yeah.

Anyways- with a brand new reboot comic series coming soon fromScout Comics (because ROM Spaceknight isn't the ONLY forgotten Marvel Comics character getting a new book at another publisher!!!) I figured it was HIGH time I took a look at the final Marvel Comics issue of David Oliphant's Solarman with #2! Written again by Stan "The Man" Lee, and illustrated by Mike Zeck, and Nestor Redondo.

-And away... we... go!:

I'm glad that Beepie appears to be dead... and is now being used as a table. -And we never have to see him again.

"Ozone? Fluorocarbons?? Global Warming??? Who gives a shit, Jenny?!? -I have to finish tracing this Doctor Doom picture so I can get a job at Marvel... like Greg Land!

"-I'm a goddamned bowl of Frosted Flakes, bitch! And I like to tussle..."

"-Just wait till we become a Major Motion Picture???" Is that seriously what they were aspiring to? After a failed cartoon pilot, failed-to-launch toy-line, and a bomb of a number one issue?? They seriously thought they'd get a movie off the ground???

(That being said- have any of you seen Stan Lee's Lucky Man??? It's a fantastic new supernatural-ish crime thriller type show on Sky 1.)

Why haven't I been talking about the plot of this issue? -You may be asking if you think anyone should actually give a shit about the plot to Solarman #2... Well- we're already on page eight, random mental patient; and so far this is all the plot there has been!

Stan Lee is just revisiting shit from issue one... Ben Tucker likes comics, his Father thinks comics are for fucking nerds, and he wishes his Son was a cool jock instead! The dorky kid just want's to tell his Dad that he's Solarman, so he'll finally be proud of him... -Yadda, yadda, yadda...

"-Next you'll be telling me you're'a gay'!

"-Comic Books?!? I fuckin' knew it- my lousy kid's a fuckin' geek! I wish your Mother would'a listened ta me when I tried to get her to have that abortion... Better you never lived at all, than be alive and reading comic books!"

So very two-dimensional...

"Hmmm... She probably got that idea from me not caring at all abut the 'real world' earlier, when I was only caring about myself and not the real world at all. -And I kept telling her so."

Okay, so Doctor Doom is about to hold our ozone hostage, and Ben thinks HE can get in to Doom's Embassy to stop him... he's just lucky that, for some reason, Doom thinks an article in the local school paper could be just the boost his image needs!:

This is fifty shades of fucked up...

-Doctor Doom throws the kid in the dungeon because he happens to see the controls to his M.A.S.S. Device...
But Doom never planned on sunlight happening to shine through a window!

So Solarman and Doctor Doom fight for awhile... and it's not as cool as you'd think it wold be... and then:

" *cough* I have the flu right now- but I'll get you next time, Gadget! NEXT TIME!!!"

Seriously... what the fuck? How is an issue definitively set in the actual Marvel universe, featuring Doctor Doom!, not as good as the first issue/cartoon-pilot was???

I mean- it's dumb. And it's fun to read and look at how dumb it is... but; there is no feeling of joy this time... There's no sense of the cartoon, childlike wonder Stan Lee is so good at doing.
This just feels soulless. -Like after the property flopped, they felt defeated... and then this issue was obligated.
So, like- they tried to have SOME fun with it... but it just feels so bitter and joyless overall.

Also- why was it a holographic image of Doctor Doom and not just a Doombot? It's ALWAYS a DOOMBOT! Come on!!!
And how was Solarman even fighting a hologram to begin with? Okay, sure- The X-Men's Danger Room has hard-light holograms they interact with while training... but they can't exist outside of the Danger Room. The hologram Doom goes outside at the end there! Plus the Danger Room is a room specialized to generate holograms- the Latverian Embassy does not appear to be.

...I am WAY overthinking the ending to fuckin' Solarman number two......

I'm going to go smoke a joint now, and eat a whole pizza...
(Looking forward to seeing what this re-boot is all about!)

Wow, that's just so bad on so many levels man. Hurts to read how dated Stan Lee sounds now when he writes. Kinda' like how bad current Steve Ditko or any artist who hit their prime many, many years ago don't always hold in today's time.That's not to say they haven't mastered the fundementals, not at all, just that it reads to completely dated. And this was Mike Zeck art too? He must've hated doing this because I'm used to seeing his usual beautiful work, 'cause this is bad. Looks kinda' like if bad artist did an equally bad job of swiping early Mark Bagely art. Yeah...that....

It'll be very interesting to see how the updated version fairs story-wise and sales-wise. Kinda'looks too similar to Firestorm for my taste.

Yeah, I think all Stan's stuff reads as dated... no matter when he wrote it. I've never thought he was a very good writer. A good business man- yes. A fantastic idea-man, yes! But his writing is very "of the times"... Concepts, though- he can do. I am loving Lucky Man.

Yup, that's Zeck... Like I said- I think they had high hopes for this property and then it all fell apart. -So they kind of quit caring...

Looking forward to the reboot. It's got a good creative team. It's funny to me how he is not a high-profile enough character to generate any outrage over the race-change. I just hope Beepie isn't in it! Here's hoping it goes AT LEAST past two issues!

SO right on about Doom's not rerally a criminal theory by Lee. No, he really is a criminal for all those reasons you listed and more, like

-various kidnapping charges-destruction of private and public property-violation of air space regulations-attempted murder-impersonating a doctor (ha, score one for relevancy!)

you get the list. He'd be fucking executed for war crimes if he was ever caught on US soil again. There's always that,, but due to the Geneva convention, he'd get a trial still, which of course let's face it, would be a formality at that point.

Clout.

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I'm just a 36-year-old, life-long comic-reader who is not much of a drinker- but I just can't figure out another way to get all of this alcohol inside of me! I buy, and read, old comic books on the regular, and just wanted to start sharing the love here.-It's all about positivity in fandom and the little things in comics that make me laugh...